In January 2010, Googleannounced the Nexus One – it was a phone designed to push the manufacturers of phones that used its Android operating system to go further and faster towards devices that would rival those produced by Apple. Nearly three years later we’re on to the Nexus 4. Made by LG, it’s a perfectly good device. But if it proves one thing it’s how vigorously Android’s other manufacturers have embraced Google’s system, and how innovative they have been with it.

So the Nexus 4 features a lovely 4.7” display, with 320 pixels per inch that are indistinguishable from the iPhone 5’s 326ppi. The operating system is now so slick that there’s not that previously perceptible lag between moving it with you finger and the screen reacting. Some of that, of course, is down to the quad-core processor that is now absolutely standard in all top-end phones.

The Nexus 4, at 9.1mm, is slightly thicker than the iPhone 5’s 7.6mm or the Samsung Galaxy S3’s 8.6mm. But when you’re quibbling about half a millimetre, it seems hard to argue there’s a major difference. The top devices are increasingly similar.

What does matter, though, is the feeling of the device and what it does: even here, however, it’s not a straightforward comparison. The upgrades to search offered in Android 4.2 are available to all phones because they’re part of the Google Search app. So Google Now is ubiquitous and improved with access to photos of landmarks and tracking of parcels. Upgrades to the camera, which add easier controls, will also come to other devices when manufacturers belatedly upgrade their operating systems. Upgrades to Gmail will appear shortly too, allowing a swipe to delete or archive a message.

So what, really, is there to compare? In reality although the weights and thicknesses are practically indistinguishable, the Nexus 4 doesn’t feel quite as elegant as, say an S3 or an HTC One X. It doesn’t help that it’s made of plastic even more slippery than that found on Apple’s iPhone 3GS or that its boxier design looks less stylish.

And nor, for that matter, does it offer the advanced audio and photography of the HTC or the clever things that keep the SIII’s display on so long as you’re looking at it, or call contacts if they’re information is on the screen. Android 4.2 itself adds a new notifications centre which offers different – but not quicker – access to WiFi, settings, brightness and other common features. From 7am to 10am, in my normal usage, the battery had lost a quarter of its charge, meaning that battery performance was, in my use, slightly below that of the S3 and slightly about the One X. At 2,100mAh, the size is the same as the S3.

Is the absence of any of those special features a major problem? No. The Nexus 4 is a great device at a mid-range price, whose 3.5G service offers, with the right network, a phone whose service is perfectly good enough. And by the time 4G is widespread in the UK, a new Nexus will be along anyway. But it has none of the special character of an S3 or a One X because it is pure, vanilla Android, unenhanced even by prettier pictures for weather updates.

Ironically, where the original Nexus phones were Google’s bid to help its own operating system, this new device feels more like a bid by Google to help a manufacturer. Samsung and HTC have made great devices and don’t need any more help – LG, Sony and Motorola are presumably all hoping Google will come and help them out soon with a Nexus product.

Indeed, with that plain vanilla Android, the Nexus 4 feels almost like a phone without a soul – functional, adequate, great even. But not one that will inspire the queues around the block we see for Apple and Samsung. Its wireless charging is ahead of the curve, but not by much; Photosphere takes lovely 360-degree panoramic pictures, and the camera is generally fine but not market-leading. Great technology is both functional and delightful; the Nexus 4 struggles with the latter, even though LG's own Optimus 4X HD is a phone with its own character.

With Google’s help, LG has produced a phone that is in some ways market leading, and so the increased competition in the market as a whole may benefit every Android consumer. I suppose when Google has so much money it’s only fair they subsidise other companies. Consumers should be grateful, even if the devices themselves are not all irresistible. Just as Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus was never its best device, so LG’s Nexus 4 is not, in sum, as appealing as its own Optimus 4X HD.

It’s the addition of software services that make it impressive – Play Music adds a free 20,000 song music match service, making your music available from any web-connected device, any time. It also makes the mere 16GB of non-expandable storage tolerable. Maps and navigation are superb, Gmail is excellent and the library of apps now so large that for phones there are no gaping holes. Android is thriving. So is Samsung. Google knows it’s the manufacturers that need all the help now, otherwise all phones will simply become dumb pipes to common services. Ironically, the fragmentation that is damaging Android, where each phone manufacturer develops a slightly different system for its Android phones, is also the only thing apparently keeping some of those manufacturers alive.